LDOE outlines LA Gator ESA program, application to open March 1; prior scholarship awards to carry over

At a meeting of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), Caleb Ward, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Office of School Choice at the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE), outlined the new LA Gator education savings account (ESA) created by Act 1 of the 2024 legislative session and described how families and schools will participate.

Ward said the LA Gator program replaces the existing Louisiana Scholarship Program (commonly called LSP), will be phased in based on state appropriations, and that the family application is scheduled to open March 1, 2025. "An ESA is a, education savings account or education scholarship program," Ward said, describing the accounts as a way for families to hold funds and use them for eligible education expenses.

The program will prioritize students who participated in the Louisiana Scholarship Program in the prior school year, followed within phase 1 by low-income students (families at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level) and students with disabilities identified under IDEA, Ward said. He said eventual phase 3 would make eligibility universal for all Louisiana children if the legislature funds those phases.

Why it matters: LA Gator changes how families receive state funds for nonpublic or alternative education services and shifts program administration and payment flow to an account-based model. The decisions BESE and LDOE make about school approvals, marketplace setup and the timing of payments will affect families, schools with waiting lists, and nonpublic providers.

Key program details provided by LDOE staff: - Legal basis and scope: LDOE said LA Gator was established by Act 1, 2024, and will cover students not enrolled full time in public schools. Students may use accounts to pay for full-time private school enrollment, individual courses or services, or other eligible expenses listed in statute and program rules. - Eligibility and prioritization: Phase structure is tied to state appropriations. Phase 1 prioritizes prior LSP participants, low-income families (<=250% FPL) and students with IDEA-identified disabilities; later phases expand eligibility. Ward said being identified under IDEA is a prioritization factor but is not by itself an eligibility criterion unless combined with other qualifying criteria. - Application and school participation: The family application will open March 1, 2025. LDOE said it preloaded nonpublic schools that were approved in the most recent BESE approval cycle onto the program marketplace so those schools do not need to reapply immediately; schools were notified by email and given an opportunity to claim their marketplace profiles. LDOE staff named Odyssey as the program marketplace platform and Stripe for payment connections. - Funding estimates and tiers: Ward described illustrative funding tiers (figures are program estimates tied to the state per-pupil formula and subject to appropriation): special education tiers up to about $15,000 for the highest-need tiers; low-income tiers roughly around $7,500; and other eligible students about $5,200. Ward cautioned these are based on percentages of the state MFP and will vary year to year. - Continuity for current scholarship recipients: Ward said students participating in the Louisiana Scholarship Program during the 2024–25 school year will "maintain the same award" when they transition into LA Gator if they remain at the same school; LDOE staff said the statute is written to preserve those prior award amounts for continuing students. - Program prohibitions and interactions with other programs: LDOE said LA Gator participation cannot be combined with certain other state-supported choice programs, including the tuition donation tax credit programs; home study participation rules differ depending on whether a family is in an approved home study program or pursuing home-based education through LA Gator.

During the question-and-answer period school leaders and diocesan representatives pressed LDOE staff on practical concerns: schools asked whether LDOE would run targeted webinars for families and how services such as speech or occupational therapy would be handled if a public-school LEA provides those services. Ward said public-school governing authorities may participate as service providers and that LDOE would provide clarifications and post frequently asked questions on the program website.

A representative of a Catholic school and other private-school speakers raised concerns about timing: many schools complete student registration and budgeting months before final awards are set. "July is really the end," a school representative said of the fiscal timeline; that speaker said late final awards could create logistical problems for schools with waiting lists. Ward responded that the department is preparing schools and the marketplace to move funds as quickly as appropriation and administrative processes allow and that Odyssey was building the marketplace to smooth payments.

LDOE said vendors and service providers will have a separate application (a vendor/service-provider application is expected to open on a rolling basis), and that schools receiving more than $100,000 in account funds in a year will be subject to additional fiscal documentation requirements. The department also said it has launched a prescreener tool and plans outreach to current scholarship families; information will be available at lagator.la.gov.

Ending: LDOE staff encouraged BESE members and school systems to direct families and schools to the LA Gator website and to schedule outreach webinars; staff said they will post clarifying guidance and that some program details remain contingent on the legislature's final appropriation.